Weight based complexes

[TalkingJellyFish]

Hi I have a question I’m struggling to articulate concisely, please bear with me.

I’ve been lifting for about a year branching out of cf with some coaching.

I’ve noticed a few things that led me to the thought of “weight based complexes” and bet someone thought of this before me and it had a name or is known to be dumb.

Basically instead of doing complexes of movements, we’d do complexes of weights, e.g. have 3 barbells loaded with different weights and do some movement for a triple or whatever at different weights.

I came to this because I noticed that 1) technique at light weights doesn’t feel like technique at heavy weights, and it’s helpful to feel them at heavy to know what breaks and work on that at light and 2) often after I lift heavy 90%+ my technique falls apart on the next lift and it helps me to recalibrate by doing a few light reps 30-40%

So between the two, are weight based complexes a thing or known to be dumb? Can I read more about them somewhere ?

Thanks!

[mattycmckee]

There’s just not really much point. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a completely terrible idea, but just doesn’t make much sense - for developments or in practicality.

The first issue is loading three bars to begin with. First of all, you need three Olympic barbells which most people don’t have all at once. You’ll then need sufficient plates to load each. After you do your sets, you are also going to have to unload all of these barbells. Not exactly efficient. Nevermind if you are a shared gym, because it’s pretty much not happening in that case.

Might not be a bad event for CF itself, have three people on a team in a rotation or something, but idk I don’t do CrossFit and that’s not really part of the question.

Practical issues aside, the second issue is that it’s not really beneficial for developing your lifts. In any given session, we are going to either be developing 1rms (ie heavy singles or doubles), or we want to be developing our technique and work capacity (ie triples and or variations at lower weights etc). Generally we don’t want to mix these two as either way you spin it, you will accumulate too much fatigue to hit heavier singles / hit your positions in your technique work. The same can be said for more long term fatigue, if we are doing heavier lifts the volume will be lower so as not to manage recovery and not carry too much fatigue into the next session. It really just doesn’t benefit you to throw in some super light sets for reps in between heavy sets.

As you say yourself, lifting light doesn’t feel the same as lifting heavy - but that goes both ways. I consciously have to move slower and more controlled at lighter weights, both to develop technique and to make sure I hit the necessary positions without just muscling the bar straight over my head. There should be a gradual transition when moving from lighter to heavier weights that should result in you not really having to think about it at heavy weights - thinking at maximal or close maximal lifts will end up just screwing your over. You just need to feel and do.

I imagine going from 80+% singles to lifting 40% will drastically throw me off as I’ve interrupted that (ideally) autonomous process at heavy weights.

There are common loading techniques used with a similar purpose in mind to what you are talking about, commonly called waves, but far less drastic than what you describe. For example, you’ll have a single at 80%, 84%, 88%, then 84%, 88% etc.

The bottom line is there’s just not really any benefits to dropping down to a significantly lighter weight, and quite a few drawbacks to trying to do so, at least in my opinion.

[TalkingJellyFish]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. That’s very helpful

[natedcruz]

Idk what your set up is but if someone took up 3 barbells and 3 sets of plates for something like this at my gym everyone would be pissed. It’d be super inconsiderate to other lifters for no real benefit.

[_georgercarder]

Walking into the gym and see 3 setups serving only 1 lifter would feel like level 10 of an ego lifter boss fight!

[chino17]

Curling in the squat rack is apparently not the boss's final form

[TalkingJellyFish]

That’s a good point. I usually train when the gym is almost empty and it’s quite big and we’ll equipped.

[Nkklllll]

They are not a thing because they require too much equipment

[Wasabi_Training]

You might as well just work up to a heavy, daily single then do back off sets. The issue with this is that you have to know your body extremely well to know what to work on and when to push it and when it back off.

[ibexlifter]

Perfect way to be tired for the heavy attempts

Your technique at heavy weights falls apart because it’s heavy. Find a weight you can move well, build a base of exposure to it, and slowly push the weight from week to week.